Designed for young travellers and locals alike, the 25,286 sqft Toojou hostel in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah accommodates up to 200 guests. Toojou is an excellent example of adaptive reuse, as the old, weathered building that once housed Toojou was a budget hotel called Century Hotel. This property has since undergone a major transformation by keeping the shell of the building, adding a new roof, and a complete interior overhaul to become Sabah’s next retrofit hotspot.
“The big idea when it came to designing Toojou was to celebrate the local culture of Sabah while creating experiences and opportunities where travel meets social,” says Ooi Design & Associates Sdn Bhd’s design team. “We want to celebrate all things Sabah, incorporate it into the design concept. Toojou celebrates localisation by creating opportunities for localised services, employing locals and tour guides, along with incorporating rich nature escapades, local arts and crafts, colours, materials, and textures into the interior design. The concept heavily revolves around adventure and cultural Sabahan references.”
The designers took into consideration the client’s budget as well as the location. One of Toojou’s selling points is its strategic location that sits along the main road while offering views of lush greenery and the Sabahan Township with the South China Sea as its backdrop. These views can be enjoyed from Toojou’s upper floors, while the lower floors make full use of the neighbouring forestry as a live, green backdrop.
For its façade of Toojou, a large piece of artwork with brightly painted grids and perforated metal screens is strategically placed to camouflage some of the air conditioning units, creating a colourful multilayered egg crate façade design.
The overall shell of the building was in relatively good condition. At the same time, certain architectural features showed promising potential for creating good interiors, such as the full height glass windows and double volume space on the ground floor. To take full advantage of these features, Toojou’s design incorporates a new mezzanine floor to expand into a portion of the double volume space, which effectively provides more grounds for spatial planning while offering different experiences and views.
The newly designed Toojou’s ground floor also allows one to immediately be transported to a bright, bold and cheerful atmosphere. There are many fun features, including a ‘sampan’ seating at the waiting area and a large central slide that connects the mezzanine to the ground floor. A clever play of words can be seen implemented on the wall using coloured LED lights, while colourful graphics dressed the existing central column, transforming this once pale and outdated space into a fun and colourful environment.
The usage of recycled items is also a recurring theme throughout the design of Toojou. The designers explain further: “Toojou’s owner enjoys adding personal touches that tell stories of the past into his new ventures. This can be seen the moment you arrive at the reception area. To create a unique vintage vibe, we used locally sourced wood planks recycled from the floorboards of an old shophouse previously owned by Toojou’s owner. These same recycled wood planks were repeated at the ground floor café bar, and parts of the flooring at the mezzanine floor.”
A brightly coloured collapsible door that contained intricate laser-cut details was also salvaged and used for the café bar background. In addition to that, we placed a retro television set on the mezzanine floor to add a quirky touch to the co-working space and provide a unique experience for youngsters.
“We believe that using salvaged materials not only allows us to be environmentally friendly and cost-efficient, but also provides a sense of nostalgia which adds to the essence of the design,” say the designers.
